I note with amusement the front-page headlines in today’s New Straits Times, “Plot to destabilise the government”.

This feeble and desperate attempt by the Barisan Nasional to pooh-pooh legitimate businesses and civil societies and organisations by insinuating that Malaysia is being secretly undermined by foreign countries is not only ridiculous but it shows how the Barisan Nasional is resorting to scare-mongering on an international scale.

Last week, the Prime Minister used the same tactic of frightening his Pekan constituents that the survival of the Malays will be at stake if BN loses in the GE13, pointing the finger at Pakatan Rakyat.

This week, the Barisan Nasional is now pointing the finger at the United States of America, by its so-called ‘exposé’ that the US-based National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is funding and supporting businesses and civil societies aligned to the Opposition in Malaysia.

Such scare tactics in fact expose the Barisan Nasional for its fear of real democracy, and even more importantly, that it is seeing demons where none exist. Surely Malaysians are not as gullible as the Barisan Nasional assumes they are. But we continue to be amused by this display of overt paranoia.

Nevertheless, the words that caught my eye are found in this outrageous statement: “the NED [is] an organisation that had been claimed to have played a significant role in attempting to destabilise legitimate governments and replace them with client proxies.”

The cheek of the Barisan Nasional to equate its governance and hanging on to power with being a “legitimate government” is laughable and any right-minded citizen of Malaysia would see right through this contemptible claim.

I would like to remind Dato’ Seri Najib that rigged elections that go unchecked, a judiciary that is manipulated, a monopoly of ownership of the media and press to the point that there is no freedom of the press, repressive laws that instil fear in the populace, smear campaigns, unjustified police brutality, royal commissions that are prejudiced and now blatant scare-mongering do not equate to a legitimate government.
Mr. Prime Minister, high above the noise of your fear mongering softly speaks your true self.